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Scipione Borghese was the first patron of Bernini. Long regarded as one of the outstanding portraits of any age, the bust was not intended for a niche or a monument, but for display, rather like an easel painting. It presents the Cardinal turning to address an interlocutor and caught in full conversational flow; the broad cut of the torso and the treatment of the drapery evoke the presence of the man as much as the turn of the head and expression.
There is a second, identical version of the sculpture in the same museum. Upon finishing the first, Bernini discovered a small defect in the marble just at the forehead. In order to satisfy his patron he made the second from a defectless piece of marble in fifteen days.
The picture shows the second version of the bust.
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